Japanese city of Nagasaki on Friday marked the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing in World War II, with its mayor calling on the Japanese government to support an international nuclear ban during the memorial ceremony.
About 5,200 people and representatives from around 70 countries and regions attended the annual memorial ceremony held at the Peace Park.
Tomihisa Taue, the city's mayor, urged Japan's central government to immediately sign a UN treaty banning nuclear weapons at the ceremony.
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue delivers a speech during a memorial service to mark the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing at the Peace Memorial Park in Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 2019. /VCG Photo
He also called on the government to "uphold the spirit of 'never resort to war,'" and spread the spirit around the world.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged in his speech that Japan would continue its efforts to serve as a "bridge between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states" and realize a world without nuclear weapons.
Nagasaki was hit by an atomic bomb by the United States on August 9, 1945, making it the second city to have endured atomic bombing after Hiroshima, and prompted Japan's surrender and the end of World War II.
Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors and relatives offer water at an alter during a memorial service to mark the the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing at the Peace Memorial Park in Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 2019. /Xinhua Photo
While Japan inwardly looks at the tragedies it had experienced at the end of World War II, historians and politicians of the international community have encouraged Japan to come to see themselves not as merely victims of the atomic bombings but also as the perpetrators who led to these tragic incidents to happen in the first place.
Japan brutally occupied many parts of Asia before and during World War II, causing untold suffering and death to hundreds of thousands of innocent people.